Memories
by Trivun
Summary: Set both before and after the end of Halo: Ghosts of Onyx, we see a glimpse of the early days for Tom and Lucy, as they remember their training and earliest missions, and as Lucy comes to terms with the trauma no-one else but Tom can ever understand.
1. Genesis

**ONYX SLIPSPACE BUBBLE - November 17th, 2552**

Repetition. That was the worst part. Every day just felt the same, the same routines over and over again. Trying to find a way out. Trying to survive. For Tom, it was nothing like his life so far. He'd always been used to everything changing every day, new assignments and operations to plan, recruits to train, and orders changing all the time. True, military life was all about routine. But at least they varied. Not like this. He couldn't bear it any more.

Tom-B292. That was how they knew him. They who had looked up to him ever since joining the outfit. He was their mentor, their role model - and now he would be their leader. The younger Spartans had trained under Tom for years and now their commander was missing, presumed dead. They were stuck in a strange place, something the mysterious doctor kept referring to as a 'Dyson Sphere', whatever the hell that was. Every day they'd spent trying to escape, or looking for food and shelter and warmth. Something to help keep them all alive. And there were the frozen bodies too. The other SPARTAN-IIIs, trapped in cryogenic storage, but neither dead nor alive. From what Doctor Halsey had explained to them, the other Spartans knew that their comrades-in-arms were in Slipspace. Incredible, but true. It made no sense to any of them, but then again, they were just soldiers.

Looking at the others as Chief Petty Officer Mendez, now acting CO, tried to get a fire going, Tom thought back to the days when he was still a child, before he'd ever heard of the SPARTAN project. It had been a long way from here, the 'shield world' that these (what had Halsey called them? 'Forerunners') had built, and the cave the group was now hiding in. Uncertain of the local flora and fauna, the group had made their way through a series of valleys in the mountains of this world, hiding during the day and travelling at night, attempting to keep ahead in case any of the Covenant had succeeded in following them through the portal they had used to get here. Not knowing, of course, that there were no more Covenant to follow them. Not after Kurt's sacrifice.

Tom was reminded of the camaraderie he had felt back then, back in his early days. He'd been born on a distant world in the Outer Colonies. Tom had visited so many worlds since then, he could barely remember it now. While he was barely more than a child, his homeworld had been attacked by the Covenant. He'd watched through the windows of a UNSC ship as Covenant cruisers and destroyers had swarmed the planet. He'd seen the bulbous dropships as they flew down to the surface, filled with vicious Brutes and Elites, Grunts and Jackals, fully prepared for the massacre they were about to inflict upon a terrified populace. Tom had been there when the Covenant ships opened fire, raining down plasma and fire on the place he had known as home. When the onslaught had ended, and the evacuation ships were making their way out of the system to safety, nothing was left but glass and ash. Tom knew he would never forget that day. No matter how much he could remember of his world or his family and friends, he would never lose his memories of that simple brutality. It was what drove him on through the hard times, what kept him resolute. He'd spent days after landing on Arcadia, on a safe planet, searching among his fellow refugees, asking everyone he saw if they could help him find his parents. But on the fourth day he'd given up. He realised they'd never even made it off the planet, unlike him. A fear that was confirmed when the man from the government came to see him.

Tom had been put in a small room with a group of other children, somewhere in the refugee camp on Arcadia. He recognised one or two, people he'd seen and played with back home. They were all refugees like him, some from his own world, others from different places. Looking around, Tom knew that they all had one thing in common. They were all orphans of the Covenant. Remembering those days, he thought back to the words that had been spoken. Being told that they would all have a choice, to get revenge on the creatures responsible for their families deaths. To become the best that they could be, to fight with honour and to do a great service for all humankind. Tom had been spurred by those words, but not as much as another. He could recall seeing her for the first time, and noticing a kindred spirit among these strange children and the emotionless soldiers. Comparing their differences, and their similarities. He, grubby and snot-nosed, with messy black hair, standing tall despite everything he'd been through. Barely six years old, yet head and shoulders above most of the other kids in the room. A stark contrast to her, - clean, small and pale with short and tidy black locks and a tiny figure, barely noticeable among the group of children listening intently to the big man in the shiny armour. Though they were so different, Tom knew they were the ones most inspired by what the armoured man was saying. By the soldiers standing there with him. And by their memories of what the Covenant had done to them, and those they had loved. They would be the ones to fight the hardest when they had the chance. The ones who would truly understand what it meant to be a SPARTAN.

Tom would never forget the moment he first met Lucy. And everything they'd been through since. But looking back at the past couldn't be enough. He knew, all that mattered now… was the future.


	2. Noble

Tom was so busy reminiscing about the early days of the Beta Company Spartans, those first steps in boot camp and the pain of the augmentations he and the others had received, that he almost failed to notice someone walking towards him from behind. Of course, to him, 'almost' was the key word - as a Spartan, Tom had reflexes and instincts greater than any normal human, even if he wasn't quite as powerful as the Halsey's own Blue Team. As the figure behind him got close, Tom spun around and grabbed the intruder in a fierce grip, holding their hands together in a defensive position and taking complete note of his surroundings. It took a few seconds for him to realise that the person was, in fact, Halsey.

"Interesting. Not as quick as Kelly, but certainly faster than any Marine. Looks like Kurt did a decent job after all." Halsey was calm, almost too calm, though Tom noted to himself that she'd seen Spartans in action before and would have known better than to try sneaking up on one. It was a test, nothing more. She hadn't had time to make a detailed analysis on the Spartan-IIIs, nor did she have an AI to do it for her, and Tom could tell this annoyed her. Though he had to give her credit - she concealed her emotions well.

"Doctor." Tom had tried to figure out her motivations in the short time the party had been trapped inside the Dyson Sphere. As far as he could tell, Halsey was driven by nothing more than knowledge, and yet he could sense there was something deeper. Some emotion he couldn't quite put his finger on. Was it guilt? Remorse? Regret? Halsey was an enigma to him, and he knew there was no way he could engage in a battle of wits with her to find out more about her. Though he knew he could always just be blunt, speak plainly and to the point, and hope that somehow she would decide to lower her defences even for a moment. He could tell from her treatment of the Spartans that she felt somehow responsible for them, as if all she wanted now was to make sure they were safe. Ironic, given they were all career soldiers from childhood. Surely they would be the ones keeping Halsey protected? Though Tom knew better than to say that out loud.

"I merely wondered what your thoughts were on the other Spartans, Tom. My Blue Team." Unlike Tom, Halsey was certainly up front about her reasons for talking.

"I think they're Spartans, like us. I think they're good at what they do. And that's all."

Halsey seemed disappointed at this. "Nothing more? You're second in command, after all."

"No ma'am. Nothing more."

"Hmmm. I wonder…" Halsey looked away from Tom, at the scarlet sunset over the grassy plains beyond the cave they were camped in. "Tell me, Tom, what do you know of Noble Team?"

That brought back a new memory with a start. Noble Team… where had he heard that before? Of course, he knew. It was nothing more than a long-forgotten reference, dredged up in the current circumstances, but Tom could recall it perfectly now. It was after the slaughter on Pegasi Delta. Operation TORPEDO. He and Lucy had been the only survivors of that battle, the rest of Beta Company wiped out in a slaughter inflicted by the Covenant. And yet, the operation had been deemed a success, the Covenant presence on the moon wiped out. The payoff? An entire company of Spartans, with one survivor so badly traumatised she would never speak again. After that battle, Tom had been separated from Lucy, and from his instructors. Lucy had almost been declared unfit for duty, only regaining her position after pleas from their commander, Kurt. Tom, meanwhile, had been requested for special duties in a squad under the direct command of Colonel Ackerson, the original instigator of the Spartan-III program. It was a black ops team, equipped and trained for only the most desperate and extreme missions against the Covenant threat. Tom had been spared, again by Kurt's request, but not before Tom had found out the name of this squad. Noble Team.

"Not much," he answered. "All I know is that Colonel Ackerson wanted me to join, but I was kept on Onyx instead. I was needed to help train Spartans."

"A noble aim, no pun intended. Well, perhaps you were better off. Noble Team was wiped out on Reach, when the planet fell. You may be interested to hear that Ackerson is dead too."

"What?"

"Oh yes, when Earth was attacked he was on the front lines. Don't ask me how he wound up there, I can honestly say I have no idea." A lie, of course - Halsey knew full well what her 'child', the AI Cortana, had done. "He was captured and tortured by the Covenant, though at least he did something good in his final moments. He did save thousands of lives in delaying tactics."

"How do you know all this, ma'am? I thought you weren't on Earth when it was attacked." Tom could tell Halsey was simply playing for time, he'd already figured out these past few days that it wasn't like her to chat idly about nothing.

"You're right, I came here straight from the Eridanus system. Blue Team told me. They filled me in on all the details, what they briefed you all on was merely part of the information they have. Classified, naturally. ONI orders." Not that Halsey had ever given a damn about ONI's 'classified orders' before.

There was something else, Tom was sure. As he watched her, she hesitated. As if deciding whether or not to tell him whatever she had come here to say. Tom decided to take the initiative. He decided if she wouldn't talk about one thing, he'd simply question her about something else, until she cracked.

"The battle on Earth. If we lose the home planet then we've lost the war, yes?"

Halsey looked up with a start. "Yes. No. Oh, I don't know. We always survive in some form or another, humans adapt remarkably well. It's the one advantage we have over the Covenant, they're imitative rather than innovative. If we lose Earth it will be a setback, and a tragedy, but certainly not the end of the war. Who knows, it may even give humanity the final push we need to take the fight back to the Covenant, and really give them a challenge. It could be what gives us the final motive to win."

She paused. "My daughter is on Earth."

Tom was surprised. He hadn't expected such a blunt comment, and such a private and emotional one, from someone who made a point as Halsey did of remaining so aloof and cold and logical. "Your daughter?"

"Yes. She's fighting, you know. Her father would be proud."

Tom tried to think of words to say, something that would be appropriate, yet nothing came. He simply stayed silent. If Halsey wanted to speak, then he would let her speak. If it opened her up enough to reveal her reason for being here (because he knew that this couldn't be the real reason), then surely it would be worth it.

"I have faith in her. She's a good leader, she has her father's skills. She even has her own ship. The In Amber Clad. She'll never let the Covenant take Earth, I know that much. Even if I never leave this place, even if it becomes my tomb, I can be proud of her. I simply wish that we spoke more…"

With that, Halsey fell silent. They stood there, at the mouth of the cave, both looking out toward the horizon, for what seemed like an eternity, though in reality it was mere minutes. Eventually, Tom broke the silence. "What was her name?" He almost regretted the words, speaking as if she was already dead. But Halsey didn't seem to notice, as she answered.

"Miranda."


	3. Bonds

There was more to this meeting than met the eye. Tom knew that even with the brief moment of weakness (weakness? More like humanity, he thought) that Halsey had just shown, there were still things she wasn't telling him. Things that she was hiding. And yet he knew she had come to him specifically to say those things, so why was she holding back? The only explanation Tom could come up with was that whatever these secrets were, they would be tough for him to handle. There was nothing for it. He was going to have to be direct.

"Doctor, I appreciate you speaking to me like this. I even sympathise with you about your daughter. I know what it's like to potentially lose loved ones to the Covenant. But there's something else, isn't there. Something you aren't telling me."

Halsey was silent for a moment. Then she spoke, just five words, but devastating nonetheless.

"Some of your Spartans survived."

Tom was shocked, and confused at the same time. For years he'd thought that he and Lucy were the only non-Gamma Spartan-IIIs left, that everyone else had died. PROMETHEUS, TORPEDO, those two operations had been responsible for the deaths of almost six hundred of his comrades, his predecessors. Gamma Company were almost gone too, wiped out by the Sentinels on Onyx - with the remaining few safe here inside the Dyson Sphere. So what could Halsey be talking about?

"I don't understand, Doctor, what do you mean some Spartans survived?"

"I mean that you and Lucy are not the only members of Beta Company to survive. Some Alpha Company Spartans did too. They were Noble Team."

With that, Tom realised, it made sense now that he would be considered for a unit such as Noble Team. If Ackerson had been in charge of a new generation of Spartans, then of course he'd use such soldiers in an elite black ops squad. Why use ODSTs when you had men and women who could each outmatch a dozen of them?

"It took me a while to realise exactly what they were. I had my suspicions, exacerbated by Ackerson's files, but I couldn't be sure until I arrived here on Onyx. Some of the Spartans you fought with, and your predecessors, were spirited away before the operations that would end their respective companies. It was done in the same way as Kurt, and they were brought into Noble Team. Unfortunately, they were all killed on Reach. Most died fighting the main Covenant invasion, one sacrificed himself to help me get away. We encountered a patrol of Elites as we were making our way to my lab in CASTLE Base. If it wasn't for Jun, I wouldn't be here now."

As she told her story, Tom felt regret, that he hadn't been around to see his old friends still alive and fighting. And remorse that he hadn't been there to comfort them as they died. Not really sentiments a soldier should have, on a battlefield, but nevertheless, he felt them all the same.

"But why tell me now? What purpose does this serve aside from new information that I can't do anything about?"

Halsey paused. "You're right, there's no real purpose. But I've seen how you are with the others. I raised my Spartans to care for each other, to trust each other. I raised them to have bonds beyond basic teamwork and friendship. That's what makes them unique. Not special armour or a lifetime of training. They fit each other perfectly. I wanted to see if it was the same with you. And I was right - your bonds are just the same. Kurt knew the value of those bonds, and he made sure they were instilled in the Spartan-IIIs just as I did with my own. Maybe not as a whole - three hundred people can't care for each other as implicitly as thirty, but within your teams you have a bond that is stronger even than those forged by me. And Lucy. I've seen you with her, these past few days, and it reminds me of someone. Someone I thought was lost."

Halsey was of course referring to John, though there was no way for Tom to know that. He'd heard rumours during his training of a great Spartan warrior, feared as a 'demon' by the Covenant, and he'd heard Kurt speak of him sometimes. But he couldn't possibly understand who she was talking about now, nor was he ever likely to if they couldn't find an exit to the Dyson Sphere soon. As Halsey continued, Tom realised she seemed to be speaking more to herself than to him.

"I know how much you care for Lucy, and I know it's more than anything superficial like friendship or love. I tried to form those kinds of relationship myself. A test, I thought. An intellectual exercise I set myself to prove how clever I am. I was always one for such frivolities. But it couldn't have worked, not truly. I found I'd failed, despite my best efforts, and it burned me inside. Until a few weeks ago when I realised the true success of my experiment. Such bonds were formed, not through artificial means, but naturally through fire and flame. When you risk your life for someone, when you spend your days fighting against overwhelming odds to support them, that's the mark of a such a bond. John and Cortana have that. So do you and Lucy."

She fell silent. Tom could barely speak. He knew she was right, he cared about Lucy more than anything, anyone, he had ever known. It wasn't merely love. It was so much deeper than that. They'd fought through desperate odds so many times, saved each other from death more times than either of them could remember, and they had both survived Pegasi Delta. They had come through the fire together, and been reformed together. It had created the bonds that Halsey spoke of, something never spoken but that they both understood implicitly. They would never leave each other, they were tied together now.

It was this thinking that gave Tom an idea. He knew that Lucy had refused to speak ever since Operation TORPEDO, assuming she still had the ability at all. Maybe the good doctor could provide some help, or advice. He knew it was a long shot, but there was no harm in asking.

"Doctor, what do you know about Lucy's condition?"

She looked at him. "I know she won't speak, that's about it. If I recall correctly, from what you and Mendez told me earlier, it was sometime after your last operation with Beta Company?"

"That's right. The doctors then said it was Post Traumatic Vocal Disarticulation. Kind of a mouthful, but I wondered, is there anything you could do for her?"

Halsey looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'm sorry, but I'm not that kind of doctor. The question you have to consider is whether she can talk, and won't, or if she simply can't at all. If the latter is true then there's nothing we can do. If it's the former, then unless she chooses to speak, there's still nothing we can do. We can hardly force her, and that would be cruel by any means. We could attempt to persuade her, but again, there would be little chance of success."

Regardless of her words, Tom was grateful. At least he had an understanding of her condition, it may not be much use to her but it certainly made him feel better. If there was a chance of helping Lucy then he would take it, but if such chances weren't available then he would simply have to accept his friend's silence.

Halsey, of course, realised there was something that could help. She didn't understand much about Lucy's circumstances, but nevertheless she had seen studies some years previously about similar reports from Marines in the field. It was exceptionally rare, but on at least one occasion the afflicted soldier had been able to recover the power of speech by learning, over time, to deal with the trauma that had caused it. Perhaps if Lucy could learn to come to terms with her tragedy, she would be able to learn to speak again, though even then it would be a slim chance and a long road to recovery. As Halsey searched through her memory for something useful, she remembered reports from a black ops mission some years ago, that seemed to have taken place roughly six months before TORPEDO. It had been notable as it had been one of the first missions to use her 'smart' AIs for combat purposes. The technology had improved over time of course, with this op using an AI inside a TACPAD, nothing like the MJOLNIR interface Cortana used with John. But there was something about that operation that she now knew hadn't added up. At the time she'd found it curious, but nothing too noteworthy, and certainly not worth chasing up given how much time she was devoting to the Spartan-II project and to MJOLNIR. The question was how a small black ops team could have completed such a dangerous and risky mission behind enemy lines in such a place. She'd originally assumed it to be ODSTs or some NavSpecWep plan, but now she realised it had to be Spartans. Her suspicions had been raised with Noble Team, and were confirmed when she saw Ackerson's S-III files. Explicit reference to the operation, a fully detailed account rather than the censored version that had reached her, had confirmed the involvement of Spartan-IIIs. More to the point, it had been Tom's own squad that took part. It had finally started to make sense, and she had realised then the memory wipe her AI had undergone to keep this from her. Ackerson had been tenacious, she would give him that much. But now, it gave her an idea. She would have Tom remember that operation and talk to Lucy. With any luck, their memories would be the trigger Lucy needed to begin her road to acceptance of the Pegasi Delta slaughter. In the end, all it took was a single word to persuade him.

"Meridian."

* * *

And that's the end of the first part of Memories! We've had a fair bit of plot exposition here, some may say a bit too much, but it's hopefully worth it to get people up to speed with what's going on over on Onyx. We'll be picking up soon on Meridian, and see exactly what this mysterious black ops mission was all about. Expect a few new characters as well as old allies, and a bit more action to come…

Also, I've had comments regarding the status of the Gamma Spartans, that they weren't on Onyx when the events of the book's end occur. I just want to assure you that I fully realise this, I simply decided to make it simpler for myself as a writer and avoid an awkward question of "where are Gamma?". Obviously a luxury fanfic writers have that official writers don't, but although it's not 'canon' (hah!) simply assume for the purposes of this particular story that the rest of Gamma were awaiting deployment onboard the Agincourt when it was destroyed in Ghosts of Onyx...


	4. Soothsayer

**UNSC ONI PROWLER **_**PEREGRINE**_** - July 20th 2544 - IN ORBIT AROUND MERIDIAN, HYDRA SECUNDI SYSTEM**

As he waited for the ONI liaison officer to return to the briefing room onboard the ONI Prowler Peregrine, Tom couldn't help but notice the discrepancy inherent in the name. It wasn't the first Prowler he'd been aboard, and assuming he survived the upcoming operation, it most likely wouldn't be the last. However, Prowlers tended to have cute, innocent, innocuous sounding names. Circumference, Lark, Applebee, these were names for such a ship. Peregrine sounded too fierce to be associated with a class like this. As far as Tom knew, the ONI commander in charge had refused an innocent name, despite the logic behind it. He'd opted for something more 'cool', more dangerous, to show just what this ship was capable of. ONI had fought back, though half-heartedly, knowing that they named their ships like this to avoid attention. Let the rest of the UNSC give harsh names to their vessels, things like Gettysburg, Trafalgar, and Leviathan. They were meant to be noticed. But Prowlers were always designed to stay on the edges of a fight, for recon and stealth, not to get involved in battles.

That being said, Peregrine wasn't a bad name as such. Those in the know would recognise it for what it was, but nothing more. And besides, this ship was special. It had been outfitted for missions like this, black ops style, with experimental engines and power systems that would allow it to travel at speeds faster than many other UNSC craft, not to mention the artificial gravity systems reverse engineered from Covenant wreckages (no more need for rotating segments on this ship, thank you very much). Alterations to the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engines allowed it to make much more accurate Slipspace jumps than the rest of the UNSC fleet, though sadly its capabilities were still far outmatched by the Covenant. And as Tom remembered, the peregrine falcon was one of the fastest species of bird around. The name fitted perfectly, and the ship was perfect for this operation. It had used such a jump to enter the Hydra Secundi system as close as possible to Meridian without raising the attentions of the Covenant fleet in orbit, then placed itself in a geosynchronous orbit directly over the operation's target zone and gone completely dark. The only way the Covenant would find them now would be if they literally bumped into them.

As Tom mulled this over in his mind, the doors to the briefing room hissed opened and a tall, slender man walked through. His name was Captain O'Connell, and he was one of the ONI officers tasked with training SPARTAN-IIIs on Onyx, and since the project was still top secret he had been assigned as a liaison between Tom's Team Foxtrot and the UNSC personnel supporting them during their active service. As far as the ship's commander or any of the crew were concerned, they were simply escorting an ONI black-ops team for a mission deep in Covenant controlled space. Close to the truth, but not quite enough to raise suspicions.

"Officer on deck", called Tom, and he and his team stood firm to attention as Tom gave the captain a quick salute.

"At ease", O'Connell replied, and took his place at the head of the holographic display that dominated the room. Team Foxtrot positioned themselves around the sides of the display, Tom and Lucy on O'Connell's left, Adam and Min to his right.

"Okay," said O'Connell, in a rough Scottish brogue, "I'm going to get right down to business, as we have very little time left to us. This Prowler needs to leave the system within twenty-four hours or we risk getting caught by the Covenant forces in orbit around the planet. The longer we take, the greater that risk, and with the experimental systems in place here we can't take the chance. It was hard enough getting permission to use this ship in the first place, but quite frankly there's no way we'd have made it in-system otherwise."

He made a sweeping gesture over the display and as built-in motion trackers recorded his movement, the display responded by bringing up a virtual copy of Meridian above its centre. Tom could see the geographic layout of the planet, two large continents separated by a large ocean with the easternmost continent ending in a curved hook in the south pointing towards the southern tip of the western landmass. Two massive ice caps marked the poles, while the climate varied between mountains and forests, to steppes, to savannah and expanses of desert near the equator. Meridian was one of a rare number of planets colonised by humans without any need for terraforming - its landscape was entirely natural.

"I'm sure you already know the basic history of Meridian so there's no need to go into the details. Suffice to say that it was attacked several times by the Covenant from 2532, until a final invasion drove the last of its colonists away four years ago. We expected the planet to have been glassed, but three months ago a Slipspace probe sent by ONI found evidence to the contrary, along with signs of Covenant activity in the northern part of the eastern continent. The probe was found and destroyed by an enemy cruiser, but not before sending its data back to ONI, and now we're here to find out what the Covenant are looking for."

Another gesture, and the hologram zoomed in on the continent O'Connell had described, to a valley in the middle of a forest. Tom could see the basic layout, the forest was mostly on flatland save for a steep-sided valley following the course of a river. As the river flowed out of the forest, there was a broad expanse of flood plain, and oddly, what appeared to be ruins, with Covenant troops crawling all over the place.

"This is an image recorded and sent by the probe before its discovery by the cruiser in low orbit. These ruins appear to be Covenant in origin, built by one of the species at least, but we're not entirely sure why they would be interested. Perhaps they want to know their own history. Either way, your task is to infiltrate the ruins and gather data, then bring it back to ONI for analysis."

Tom took the opportunity to ask a question. He had always been taught to have as much information as possible when entering a battle, and he didn't want to be asking questions later when the moment was too late. "Do we have a detailed plan, sir, or will we simply be improvising on the ground?"

O'Connell replied, "The valley is lightly guarded, since the Covenant believe they are impenetrable with a fleet directly over their heads. You'll be taking a Pelican, cloaked and shielded from radar, to the surface. It's small enough to slip past the Covenant defences without being detected. You should try to land it in cover near the top end of the valley and make your way downstream towards the flood plains. From there it will be harder to find cover, so try and commandeer a Covenant vehicle. Reach the ruins, gather as much intel as you can, then get back to the Pelican the way you came in and bug out back to the Prowler. Shouldn't be too difficult for soldiers of your talents."

The captain hesitated. "You won't be going alone on this mission. The data on these ruins is particularly relevant to one of our researchers. You may have heard of her. Her name is Doctor Halsey."

This caused a stir. The team had certainly heard of her, though they had never met her. Was she to be joining them on this operation? She was a civilian, the team knew that much. They couldn't afford to hold anybody's hand, especially not in hostile territory on a stealth op like this. Fortunately, their thoughts were rendered moot when O'Connell started to speak again.

"Doctor Halsey has been researching the Covenant as one of her 'special projects' for ONI, and she received word of the data sent by the ONI probe three months ago. She saw the same image you are seeing now, and wants that data from the ruins. In addition, she has been researching the field of artificial intelligence for the UNSC, and has made some strides in recent years. I'm sure you're all aware of the difference between a dumb AI and a smart AI, though the names are something of a misnomer. Nevertheless, smart AIs have never before been used in combat situations for various reasons, but Doctor Halsey recently developed the first combat-specialised smart AI. It is this AI who will be accompanying you on your mission."

This news was a shock to Team Foxtrot, but they were well trained - they covered it up well. They had worked with AIs in the field before, but never for combat purposes, only ever for logistical reasons or to offer updated intelligence and support. They wondered how an AI would aid them for combat, but as O'Connell explained to them they realised just how useful a combat-ready AI would be. The personality would be able to access the Covenant Battlenet, something no dumb AI had achieved before, and that would make all the difference. They would be able to access Covenant information systems, operate Covenant vehicles and tools, and even communicate directly with the Covenant fleet in orbit, though they saw no reason for that to happen. But the most important part was the increased storage capabilities a smart AI would provide for getting the data back to Halsey herself for analysis. As O'Connell explained this to the team, the hologram of Meridian's surface disappeared and was replaced by the figure of a young woman. She spoke with a soft Irish accent and wore a long white dress, contrasting with her thick tangled black hair. This was obviously the AI who would be accompanying them on their mission.

"Hello. My name is Cassandra, UNSC serial number CNA 0192-3. I assume you have been informed on the mission we will soon be undertaking?"

O'Connell replied in a firm voice, "I was just briefing them now, Cassandra. Team Foxtrot, this is the AI that I was talking about. She will be coming with you, stored in a standard-issue TACPAD so be careful with her. She will be carrying the data you are to obtain, so make sure nothing happens to her. She's also responsible for the name of the operation. A little joke on her part, it seems."

"Operation: SOOTHSAYER", she responded, smiling slightly at the team. Of course - Cassandra of mythology, which was also where Halsey had found inspiration for the AI's name. Though it made sense in a roundabout way. The AI named after an old Earth legend would help uncover more legends now.

* * *

As the team ended their briefing and made their way to their Pelican, Cassandra thought to herself, safe inside the TACPAD being carried by Lucy. She knew the team weren't being told the truth. She knew more than any of them thought, about the Forerunners and the mysterious ruins and artefacts found on other planets. Halsey, Sorvad, Ackerson, and numerous others within ONI had been searching for evidence on the ancient race of aliens for a long time, and Meridian was home to far more than the Covenant. Team Foxtrot would never know the truth behind what they were searching for, but better to let them think they were sneaking around an old Elite city than worry about what other aliens they could have to fight. Whatever they found down there, Cassandra knew that the Spartans would be kept in the dark. She was built for ONI anyway, so she could hardly complain. All that mattered right now was getting her to the ruins. From that point on, she would take things as they came.

* * *

**And so, we move on, and we start to see just what Team Foxtrot were doing down on Meridian all that time ago. Coming up, we start to see the action as the team reach the surface and find there's more than just one set of ruins down there, and Cassandra sees just how far the Forerunner's information went, not to mention why the Covenant would glass a planet holding such holy relics...**


	5. Infiltration

Everything went wrong right from the start.

The Pelican being piloted by Lucy, with Cassandra's aid, had been outfitted specifically for missions of this sort. It had plenty of combat experience planetside, with special plating giving an extra defensive capability and shields preventing exposure by radar, thermal imaging, or any other kind of scanning the ONI scientists could think of. And yet, despite all the effort put into keeping the Pelican hidden, the spooks had forgotten one thing - the Covenant could still see it. No amount of machine trickery could stop the naked eye, and since the craft needed power to actually reach Meridian, it was lit up in the night sky like the plasma that had burnt the SPARTAN homeworlds. Halfway towards the surface, a Covenant patrol had spotted the landing party and sent out an alert on the Covenant Battlenet, which would only serve to make the job that much harder. At the same time, the fleet in orbit started scanning and searching for any UNSC ships in the region, finally spotting the Peregrine's silhouette hiding near the planet's single moon. The last Team Foxtrot had heard was a distorted message saying the ship would retreat to the edge of the star system and return in twelve hours for evacuation. Then everything went dark.

As she fought to get the ship under control, Lucy knew that twelve hours wouldn't be anywhere near enough time to complete this operation. Soothsayer was designed specifically around stealth, the entire point was to land without Covenant knowledge away from the dig site and sneak in towards the ruins - now their cover had been blown, it would be much more difficult to reach the city, complete the missions, and make it back to the Pelican in time. If the Pelican survived the trip at all, that was. Despite her best efforts, and Adam's skills as a gunner, they had been unable to avoid a direct hit from a Seraph, severing several fuel and control lines and causing severe damage to the hull. Now Lucy and Cassandra were struggling to hold the ship together, trying to shake off their pursuers as they continued towards the surface. Down was the only way they could go, and the craft was in great danger of tearing itself apart as it made its way through the atmosphere. One by one, the Banshees and Seraphs chasing them were driven back, not being designed for in-atmosphere combat, and figuring that the Pelican would never make it to the ground intact. Adam could deal with the few hangers on, though he had to be careful - too much fire from the computer-controlled turrets would do as much damage to the ship as anything else, shaking it even more and making Lucy's job a lot harder.

As the Pelican cleared the clouds above the city they thought of as Elite ruins, the team saw through the viewing screens the landscape beneath them. There was no hope of reaching the valleys now, they didn't have time, and they had already lost the element of surprise. The best thing to do now would be to land as close to the city as they could, and bail out before they hit the ground. The ruins themselves were sited in the middle of the plains, with a great meandering river flowing directly through. The city was surrounded by a metallic wall, and seemed to be a tribute to Covenant design, or rather, as Cassandra knew, Covenant design was a tribute to the city's true architects. Towers and spires littered the area, with bizarre geometries poking through here and there, like an M C Escher painting repeated over and over. Even the bridges across the river seemed off somehow. In fact, half of the roads simply stopped at the banks, and became beams of light supporting the Covenant troops making their way across. Team Foxtrot had never seen anything like it before. They wished collectively that they could stop and marvel at this amazing sight, but the Pelican was now in freefall. Lucy and Cassandra had failed.

"We don't have much of a choice," Tom shouted over the sound of the engines as they went into overload. "We either bail out now, or we can make our own graves when we hit the ground." Lucy barely caught that, as Tom yelled orders to the rest of the team. She could see Minh in the corner of her eye, stowing his gear and the TACPAD they were to carry Cassandra on. Without a word, she understood what he wanted as he passed the device to her. She took it and plugged it into the control panel of the Pelican. A second later and she heard a soft Irish voice in her helmet: "Okay, I'm ready." Lucy unplugged the TACPAD and gave it back to Minh, then prepared herself. She estimated they had perhaps a minute before the landing craft hit dirt.

It took the team just over a minute to hit it themselves.

* * *

"My God, I am never doing that again," said Adam, as Team Foxtrot recovered from the fall. They had jumped out of the Pelican when it was still pretty high, relying on the liquid nanocrystal layer of their armour to provide a cushion for the blow of hitting the ground. It had required extremely careful timing, given the limitations of SPI armour. It relied more on stealth than brute force, so any higher and they'd have risked broken bones, internal bleeding, maybe even death. It was risky even at the height they'd jumped from, but nowhere near as risky as hitting the planet at the speeds the Pelican was falling at. Besides, if the fall didn't kill them, the explosion from the severed fuel lines would have.

"Just be thankful we're all still here," muttered Tom, looking around to get their bearings. Team Foxtrot had been even more lucky than they realised, landing fairly close together. This was mainly down to the low altitude they'd jumped from, giving very limited possibility for deviation. Tom checked his radar, searching for FOF tags. Nothing was nearby, they had escaped their pursuers on the descent and surely the Covenant nearby would have rushed to the crash site to check for survivors. The mission was still on, but there would be no stealth approach now. All they had now was a small advantage while the Covenant investigated the wreckage of the Pelican. While that small window was open, they could get as close as possible to the city. They had landed on the edge of the forest, just by the plains, while their craft had landed a fair distance away, deeper into the woods. But it was while scouting the area, trying to find a way of getting to the ruins unnoticed, that Adam stumbled on another small miracle for Team Foxtrot.

A Covenant patrol had spotted the team's descent and had tried to investigate the crash site, but it appeared their Banshees couldn't easily penetrate the thick trees. To deal with this, three of the five Elites piloting the fighters had moved into the woods on foot to investigate, leaving their craft parked. The other two were circling the skies at an altitude of around fifty metres, keeping an eye out for the SPARTANs. It wasn't too difficult to bring them down, with Lucy playing rabbit - she was easily the fastest in the team. As she drew the fire of the circling patrol, Adam, Tom and Minh quickly made their way into the forest and towards the parked aircraft. Adam was to play an important part in this plan, being the team's designated marksman - as soon as one of the Banshees in the air attempted a strafing run to bring Lucy down, he was able to fire a full sniper clip through the glass at the pilot. The instant it hit the ground, Lucy pulled the dead pilot out of the craft and jumped in herself, meeting the others in the air as they stole the three parked Banshees. The last Elite on patrol found itself outnumbered by the four SPARTANs, before joining its brethren down below. No risk to the team, and their window was still open. Observing radio silence from now on, Team Foxtrot quickly made their way over the city walls and into the ruins.

Cassandra knew plenty about the city, it turned out. As she detailed to Minh upon entering the ruins, ONI had gathered plenty of data from their probe before it had been discovered and destroyed, and all the gathered information had been passed on to her. She was careful not to reveal any information about Forerunners, or the truth of her assignment, but she did have some valuable intelligence to give the team. The TACPAD they were using had been specially designed, like so much of their equipment on this operation. It had ports that would allow it to connect directly to Covenant control panels and interfaces (or rather, Forerunner, as she knew), giving her direct access to the Covenant Battlenet and their computer systems. She also knew where to direct the team, to a large building shaped almost like a wheel, in a courtyard on the banks of the river. The river itself bordered one side, while the other sides were surrounded by a downwards sloping pavilion. The building was in the centre, looking like a ring from above with seven corridors acting as spokes leading to another building in the centre. The building had a single door leading in, and as Cassandra explained, it was once a library.

"The door is on the north-west side, facing the river", she told them as they approached the courtyard. "Inside, the ring and spokes act as the main public areas, but we believe everything to be stored on a database in the central hall. ONI believes that the hall acts as the main information centre for everything in the library. There won't be any books, everything is digitised, but there won't be access ports compatible with the TACPAD there. You'll need to make your way to the central hall and find a terminal. Just plug me in, and I'll do the rest."

A simple plan, but would it go smoothly? As Tom thought when he reached the hall though, it did seem to be going okay. The team had landed safely, hiding the Banshees from any potential Covenant investigators. They had entered the library and seen nothing to alarm them, with no enemy and no traps. Everything appeared okay to him. Nothing to worry about. The hall itself was massive, with seven doors leading to the seven spokes on a balcony level. The hall wasn't entirely on the ground floor, like the rest of the library, in fact it was sunk into the ground. The upper floor comprised the balcony Team Foxtrot were standing on, with seven walkways each starting halfway between two doors, leading to a gravity lift in the centre. The lift didn't stop at the lower level though, but carried on deep underneath the library building. As the team made their way to the lift and descended, stopping at the lower level, they could see the layout of the rest of the room. The lower floor was littered with desks with holographic interfaces, arranged in concentric circles, and a set of control panels and screens and information terminals lining the walls. Everything looked dark, with metallic silver colours and blues and purples giving an ominous tone to the place. It made Tom feel uneasy.

"Okay, plug me in." said Cassandra in their helmet speakers, breaking the silence that had been held for most of the journey. "Any terminal will do." Minh, who was carrying the TACPAD even now, obliged, walking to the nearest wall terminal and locating the corresponding port. He slid the data pad into the slot and waited. "Right, that should do it. Just give me a minute to access the files and download everything. It shouldn't take-" Suddenly, the lights went out and Cassandra was cut off.

"Damn it Minh, what happened?" demanded Tom, realising that maybe his fears about this place were to be realised.

"I don't know, everything was fine until now, it looks like a power cut to me." Minh knew that couldn't be the case though, he too shared his friend's suspicions. Besides, it was too much of a coincidence to think that the library would suffer a power outage after countless centuries or even millennia of running smoothly, just as Team Foxtrot arrived. "I think it was deliberate."

"The Covenant", said Lucy. "They must have seen us come here, or maybe they figured out what we were after. Either way, we need to get this place secure now." Without waiting for Tom's orders, she drew her assault rifle and ducked down behind a desk on the outer circle, prepared for the inevitable onslaught. Copying her, Adam did the same, as did Tom and Minh, each taking a different desk to keep their own cover and deal with all possible angles of attack.

Just as Tom got into position, the lights came on again to reveal what appeared to be a small army on the upper level. The walkways were filled with Grunts, while Elites and Jackals kept to the balcony. All they were waiting for was the order to fire. It was an impossible task to deal with this kind of enemy, even for a team of SPARTANs. But they had little choice. Without Cassandra, they couldn't leave. They had to defend this spot. The only other option would be to run, deeper into the library complex, down the gravity lift to see just what other secrets this building was hiding. As Tom thought about this, he knew it was a hopeless chance. But it was a risk his team would have to take. Otherwise, it would all be over.

* * *

Cassandra knew the power outage was coming before it hit. She had seen a coded message inside the Forerunner systems just as she was locating the files Halsey needed. It took less than half a second for her to decode it, and another full second to realise what it meant. She marvelled at the ingenious way the Covenant were using these old lines and systems, piggybacking on them to speed up their communication channels via their Battlenet. But she didn't have time to get the message out before the systems went down. Whatever had caused it (perhaps one of the theorised species ONI was so interested in, these 'Engineers'?) had been too quick even for her. Amazing. But now Team Foxtrot were caught in the trap the Covenant had set, and she was stranded. She could access the entirety of the Forerunner database and the city's systems from here, but she was unable to reactivate the terminals in the library. She could help the team escape their current plight, but they would have to make it to another terminal in another location before she could rejoin them. It would be dangerous for them, but they were SPARTANs. They were used to it.

Just as Cassandra prepared to enact her plan to help her allies, she noticed something in the files she had downloaded. Some of the information Halsey had wanted on the Forerunners was here, however it wasn't anywhere near as much as ONI had hoped. It appeared that the probe had seriously misinformed them, albeit unintentionally, of the information that was to be gathered here. Most of the data had already been purged by the Covenant, possibly by these mysterious Engineers, long ago. The Covenant probably had records themselves, but trying to find them would be impossible now. Never mind, she thought. Cassandra would prepare a report with the data attached later on, and whatever was here was certain to be of at least some interest to the spooks back on Reach. But there was something else. Something Cassandra had never seen nor heard of before, and yet it was bound to be important. It was a single word, but blocked by layers of encryption and security. No doubt there was a treasure trove of data to be gained here, and Cassandra was curious, but it would take time to delve into it. She would have the chance while Team Foxtrot made their way to another terminal. She stored it in her memory banks for the time being, while she made her way through the system to the controls she needed to save her SPARTAN comrades. She knew the potential data store would be important, but just how much, she had no idea. If ONI could find out, though, it could turn the whole tide of the war, just from one single word.

Precursor.

* * *

**Okay, I'll admit I'm not so good at writing combat, hence the bit near the start being more on the 'get to the action' side rather than the action itself. Still, pretty interesting developments here, and now we have the Precursors to add to the mix! How does Cassandra intend to help our heroes with this fight, and just what will she learn about the Forerunners' own 'gods'? We're getting near the end now, just two more chapters to go, and there's everything at stake on the surface of Meridian...**


	6. Library

**JULY 20TH 2544 - FORERUNNER LIBRARY COMPLEX, MERIDIAN - 8 HOURS TO EXFILTRATION**

As the SPARTANs of Team Foxtrot took up position around their makeshift barriers, crouched behind the desks of the central archives, they knew the chances of escape were slim at best. Above them, the balcony and the bridge were crawling with Covenant troops. Grunts armed with plasma pistols and grenades, Jackals and their carbine rifles, Elites and their plasma rifles. The only thing missing here was a pair of Hunters, though Tom was certain there would be a few of them clunking around the place somewhere. The situation was certainly desperate, but SPARTANs were no strangers to fighting against the odds. He never expected the battle to turn out quite the way it did.

Safe inside the Forerunner archives, Cassandra could see everything through the library surveillance systems. She knew she had to do something quickly, or this mission would be over just as things were getting interesting. There would be no point to her presence in the archives if she had no way of getting the information back to ONI. And the strange files she had sensed - that word, Precursor - would have to wait until her wards were out of danger. As she mulled things over in the space of a second, a lifetime to a smart AI such as her, she noticed within the system a set of programs for controlling the environment of the complex. This building wasn't just a library in the standard sense, but there were also laboratories and enclosures all around. Deep beneath the SPARTANs' feet, the library became the playpen for Forerunner scientists (and here she picked up another odd phrase - 'Lifeworker'), and to that end the entire building needed systems to maintain things such as pressure, temperature, internal climate, and much more besides. With this, Cassandra began to form a plan. She could use these systems to provide Team Foxtrot the opening they needed. They would just have to hope their SPI armour was up to scratch.

Watching the Covenant above them, the SPARTANs knew their fates were at the mercy of the Elite commanding the group, something the race of aliens wasn't particularly known for. All it needed was a single order and the terminal level would become a sea of plasma, with Team Foxtrot at the centre. For all its strength and its shield system, even SPI armour couldn't withstand direct plasma fire of that magnitude. As Tom contemplated this, he noticed a red light on the corner of his HUD display. His armour was going into lockdown, sealing itself at all seam points. Pushing his chin forward and to the left brought up a diagnostic report, which provided a breakdown of what was going on. The air in the room rushed out through vents in the ceiling as the gravity lift shut down and the hole in the floor closed. Up on the balcony, the Elites and Jackals collapsed to the ground, clutching at their throats (or their equivalent) and slowly dying. Cassandra had managed to vent the entire air supply of the archive room, killing everything inside that didn't have its own life support systems. That was to say, everything that was neither a Grunt nor a SPARTAN. While this was happening, she had also managed to disable the gravity lift in the centre of the room, stopping any survivors from taking a chance and storming the SPARTANs on the lower level.

It was nothing short of a miracle to Tom and the others. The methane tanks that provided breathing material for the Grunts would prove their downfall, as the SPARTANs opened fire aiming directly for the tanks themselves on each Grunt's back. The explosions set off a chain reaction that killed the rest, just as the air started to flood back in to the room. Within a few brief minutes, it was all over.

As the SPARTANs recovered from the brief firefight and began to regroup, they heard Cassandra's voice coming from hidden speakers somewhere within the archive room.

"Sorry I took so long. I should have seen them coming."

Tom could hardly be angry at her. She had just saved their lives, after all. ONI could certainly be proud of this new toy. These smart AIs would prove extremely useful in combat if they could harness such power and control as Cassandra had done just then.

"It's fine", he replied. "Are you done in there or do you need more time?"

Cassandra sounded somewhat worried, odd for an AI. "I'm afraid it's not that simple. The hardware has been completely disconnected from the system, I don't know how, but the Covenant has shut me off. Every terminal in this complex has been locked so no data can pass in or out, and I can't hack the terminals themselves to reconnect them. It's a catch-22. The only way you can transfer me back to the TACPAD is by finding another terminal that hasn't been hit by the Covenant, and transfer me there."

It was another challenge on a mission that had already been complicated by several big hiccups. And to a SPARTAN, a hiccup was a death sentence. "How can we get out of here, and where can we find another terminal to yank you?"

"Getting out will be a lot harder than getting in, I'm afraid. I've managed to seal the corridors, but there are more Elites in the outer ring trying to get in. You're surrounded. And these guys don't just have Grunts with them. I've managed to access the surveillance systems and I count no fewer than four Hunter pairs in the ring with them. If you try to escape through the access corridors, you'll be fighting a losing battle. Venting the air won't do anything against Hunter colonies." With this, Cassandra was referring to the colonies of worms – Lekgolo – that shared a hive mind and were able to form humanoid shapes together, densely packed into the bulky armour that made the bonded brothers of the Mgalekgolo, or Hunters.

Tom had faced Hunters before, but never so many, and never in such a closed space as the outer ring had been. Most of the library facility was access corridors and storage, leading to the seven corridors that connected the ring to the central archives. Fighting just one Hunter pair in there would already be suicide, fighting four was simply stupid. He thought back to the last time he'd faced a pair of Hunters. It had been a more open field with plenty of cover, and it had taken all four members of Team Foxtrot to win. While Lucy, as the fastest, had played 'rabbit', distracting one of the pair, Tom, Adam and Minh had taken out the other Hunter by using cover and flanking it from the rear and both sides. When the first was dealt with, Lucy had rejoined the others and they had flanked the second by the rear and sides again. Even so, it had been a close run, with the fuel rod guns favoured by the giants causing them significant radiation damage (requiring a month's rehabilitation back at Camp Curahee before they were able to return to active duty). No, Tom had no intention of fighting Hunters here.

"What other ways out are there? Surely we have some other option."

Cassandra was silent for a full two seconds, nothing to the SPARTANs but a lifetime for her. "There is another way. The gravity lift continues down under the library complex to old tunnels. The main tunnels are sealed, and I can't open them, but there are secondary tunnels that were used for access and maintenance. You should be small enough to squeeze through without the Covenant following. Only a Grunt could get in easily after you. They lead to a water processing plant on the other side of the river, about a kilometre north of here. It's the only other way out. I won't be able to offer any help until you reach the plant, since there are no speakers in the tunnels, but I have access to the computer systems for the entire city. When you get there I can give directions to the nearest working terminal."

It was a solid plan, but Tom couldn't help feeling a little uneasy. He didn't have any knowledge of the city layout, especially not the underground parts, and without intel he would rely on Cassandra's help to know what was coming ahead of him. If the Covenant knew about the tunnels, they could set up an ambush at the other end and Cassandra would have no way of warning the team. However, it was either that, or face four pairs of Hunters here. When given a choice between certain death and mere probable death, Tom would take the 'probable' option every time.

There was a perfectly good reason for Cassandra's hesitation. Below the library were Forerunner laboratories. These were now sealed, as she had claimed, and were untouched (so far) by the Covenant. Apparently, none of the Covenant had discovered them yet, which was good news for ONI. The laboratories were also connected underground to the water plant Cassandra had mentioned, but that wasn't the issue. Even now, the SPARTANs believed this to be an old Elite city, that Meridian had been a former Sangheili colony world in ages past. The knowledge of the Forerunners was limited to ONI and a few select civilian scientists. Halsey, Iqbal, Sorvad, and a few others. Only those who could be trusted with the information. Cassandra had no direct orders to keep the SPARTANs from finding out anything otherwise here, but she still had no intention of letting them in on that little secret unless there was no other choice. The lies came naturally to her – she was ONI, and she had been built by Halsey. Her pattern donor had been a top ONI spook too, one of Parangosky's former lackeys, which made her perfect for an operation like this. And so she had no choice but to stop the SPARTANs from entering the labs below. The maintenance tunnels had been a blessing in disguise. They were built for Huragok – Engineers – another Covenant species, but created by the Forerunners themselves. A useful coincidence that gave a handy evacuation route for Team Foxtrot without them ever needing to step where Cassandra didn't want them to. She knew the dangers, but there wasn't another choice.

* * *

As the SPARTANs made their way north through the system of tunnels, Cassandra kept an eye on their progress. Their were no cameras or other surveillance systems inside the maze, but she was able to monitor their biometric systems via the climate control systems, allowing her to track the team by the heat signatures and other data left in their wake. Fortunately, there was no sign of any Covenant at the other end. She had disabled the gravity lift in the library as soon as Team Foxtrot were in the tunnels, so nothing was coming after them. If there were Engineers around, she reasoned, they would have discovered the laboratories much sooner, yet she had sensed nothing alive inside. For now, at least, the SPARTANs were safe. Cassandra left a subroutine to keep an eye on the climate control and continue to watch over the group; in the meantime, she planned to check out the rest of the Forerunner archives. Chances were she would find very little of the Forerunners themselves. Most of the systems here had been looted of knowledge and then purged. But the curious thing was that the purge was beyond Covenant means. They had little knowledge of technological systems, considering the Covenant were more imitative than innovative. Perhaps Engineers were responsible, but while searching the city's systems Cassandra had found no trace of any. Amazingly, the Covenant hadn't thought to bring any Engineers to Meridian. She couldn't guess why, as they would have been incredibly useful while excavating Forerunner ruins. Nevertheless, it would help her considerably. No, the purge had been instigated by something else. Or someone. No UNSC AI was here, and the Covenant didn't use any. It was another mystery about this place, something else for ONI to ponder. All that remained were traces. Key words that led nowhere, like 'Precursor', 'Array', and a phrase that kept appearing in her search spider. 'Shield and Sword'.

Leaving the subroutine to its allotted tasks, Cassandra began to delve deep into the archives. She was trapped their for a while, after all, so there was little point in simply sitting around waiting for the SPARTANs to yank her. It would take a while for them to reach a terminal anyway. She had a route planned for them, avoiding Covenant patrols ideally, though there was little guarantee such a plan would work. The subroutine would tell them. For now, she had other things to consider.

As Cassandra explored the archives, looking for any clues or useful information she could take back to ONI, she was unaware of another presence within the system. Something else watching her. It stayed in the shadows, observing her from a distance. Keeping its presence hidden. Waiting to see what she uncovered. That would be the time to strike.

* * *

**FORERUNNER GOVERNMENT BUILDING – 6 HOURS TO EXFILTRATION**

The subroutine had led them well thus far. Tom knew that there was every chance the Covenant would be preparing an ambush as they left the tunnels, so he had ventured out first to keep his team safe. They had been lucky. After that, the subroutine Cassandra provided had appeared in the main hall of the water plant, aided by an old (yet working) holographic display. She informed them of a terminal they could use to pull Cassandra in a building about ten kilometres north, which she had apparently posited to be an old government facility back before the Sangheili had been taken into the Covenant. It was like a single spear with the point plunged into the ground, a hundred feet high, with seven smaller curving beams of some unknown metal curling around the base, supporting the structure. As the building rose, it seemed to curve as well like a corkscrew, widening at the top. It almost reminded Tom of pictures he'd once seen of old-Earth architecture, a building in a city called Seattle, but with a very alien feel to differentiate the two. Around the base was a plaza of white stone, perfectly arranged bricks paving the space, yet no two shapes were the same. Tom had a feeling that if he were to compare every single brick, each and every one would be unique.

The journey here had been mostly uneventful, despite the Covenant openly looking for them. There were plenty of terminals in other facilities nearer to the water plant, but they were all guarded. The Covenant had guessed what the SPARTANs were looking for, but they didn't expect the team to look any further than they needed to. It had taken about half an hour to traverse the waterways and tunnels underneath the river, and another hour and a half to reach the spire. It had been very slow progress, avoiding the patrols and trying not to run into random troops wandering the city. All the time, the subroutine of Cassandra had used whatever was available to her nearby (holographs, speaker systems, even public view screens left abandoned) to guide them to the next rally point. Although the distance was ten kilometres as the Pelican flew, they had really walked closer to twenty in a roundabout route. Nevertheless, they had avoided combat, and they had regained the element of stealth. Tom was thankful for that. It made his job a lot easier.

Lucy couldn't help but think that they were cutting it very fine. The Pelican she had flown Team Foxtrot in on had been wrecked. They had six hours until the scheduled meeting time with the UNSC Peregrine, currently hiding on the system's edge after being detected by an orbiting Covenant fleet. Getting into space to meet with the ship would take at least a couple of hours, depending on what they used. Even if a Covenant battleship was anywhere near the surface of Meridian, it would be impossible to get on board, let alone capture. The team would be forced to find something else. A Spirit or Phantom dropship, or perhaps a set of space-faring Banshees or Seraphs. Even then, the speed capabilities of those ships was limited. They would have a tiny window of time to make their escape, and every second the Peregrine waited in-system was a second too late, putting the crew and the ship at risk. Most of the Peregrine's crew and staff were standard Navy swabs and Marines, with no idea of Operation SOOTHSAYER. Lucy knew they couldn't be put at risk like this. While Tom and the others focused on getting Cassandra back, all she wanted to do was find some way of getting off the planet. Maybe Cassandra would be able to help when she came back fully.

It was easy enough getting into the building. The doors were locked, but a quick burst of gunfire from Adam soon changed that. Minh had no clue of Forerunner technology, but he had seen Covenant gravity devices often enough to jury-rig the gravity lift to a power pack, carried as a standard part of his technician's pack. According to Cassandra's subroutine, the terminal was located at the centre of the great meeting hall, located at the very top of the spire. The gravity lift would take them one floor below the hall level, with a spiral corridor leading to the hall itself. It would be a simple matter then of pulling Cassandra out and returning her to Minh's TACPAD, and then the team could share Lucy's worries. A routine job.

* * *

As Cassandra found herself deeper inside the Forerunner archives, she slowly became aware of the other presence hiding inside the system. Perhaps this was linked to the data purge? She started to act more carefully, keeping an eye on her surrounding systems. If anything was in here with her, she would soon find out. Nevertheless, she didn't want a fight. She prepared her welcome routines, making sure that anything that appeared would have no reason to become antagonistic.

"Where are you..." she thought to herself. It wouldn't be long before she found out. Cassandra realised that whatever was here wasn't likely to just approach her without cause, so she plucked up her courage. She would initiate contact instead. Sending a welcome message (including her name and UNSC serial number) across the system, coded to avoid Covenant suspicion, she would attempt to open communications with the presence. ONI would certainly be interested in this. Just a few seconds later, came the reply.

"Greetings to you. I am 692 Redeeming Grace. How may I help you?"

This was the last thing Cassandra expected. Another AI in the Forerunner archives! This obviously wasn't a human AI, no matter how stuffy some of the ONI constructs could be. And the Covenant didn't have the technology. There was only one other possibility...

"I'm sorry, but are you a Forerunner construct?"

692 Redeeming Grace didn't seem to think this was an odd thing, which was more than could be said for Cassandra. "But of course. I am the Monitor of this installation, known in your parlance as the Ancillary. You should know this already, yes? Are you not a device of the Reclaimers?"

Cassandra had no idea what he was talking about. What did he mean by 'Reclaimer'? Thinking back, she remembered it had been one of the key words remaining in the archives after the data purge. Surely this apparent Forerunner AI couldn't have been responsible for that? Why would he have wished to destroy Forerunner records? And what was the 'Ancillary'? She could think of no related term in the English language, at least, none that made sense in this context. Perhaps it was a Forerunner word. There were so many questions she had, yet so little time to answer them, even by AI standards. It was time to be blunt.

"I'm sorry, but I have no idea what you're talking about. You know my name, my serial number. I'm a UNSC AI on a classified operation for the Office of Naval Intelligence. I don't know anything about these 'Reclaimers'."

Despite this, 692 Redeeming Grace (or as she would call him from now on, simply 'Grace') was nonplussed. "Nevertheless, you are Reclaimer. Perhaps your memories have been affected by the ongoing purge. Strange, I've not noticed you in these systems until now. No matter. There is much to do. Has the Array been activated successfully?"

More mysteries. An 'Array'? Another keyword from the archives. ONI would be very happy with this. Wasn't the entire purpose of SOOTHSAYER to find Forerunner knowledge? Cassandra knew she had to find a way of getting Grace to co-operate with her. If she could persuade him to come with her, she could disguise him as a Covenant construct to fool the SPARTANs. A Forerunner AI would be the turning point of the war, giving humanity access to technology and secrets far in excess of the Covenant. It would be enough to drive the Covenant back, perhaps even enough to win the war for good.

Little did Cassandra know that she would never have the chance.

* * *

On the outer edges of the Hydra Secundi system, Captain O'Connell waited on board the UNSC Peregrine, counting down the hours until the agreed meeting time. Just six more hours. He still had no idea how to make it in-system without attracted unwanted attention from the Covenant. Even though the ship was an ONI Prowler, it was still nothing short of suicide to linger anywhere near Meridian. The Covenant had already stumbled upon them once, and that was something the Captain planned to bring up in his mission log. Parangosky would certainly be hearing about this, and with any luck the next refits would actually work in keeping the Peregrine hidden in future. Nevertheless, he would just have to make it somehow. If he had to wing it, he would. As long as he was there at the right time, it wouldn't take long to pick up the SPARTANs and then a quick Slipspace jump would bring them to safety. The Peregrine's speed would be their saving grace. Finally, a quick Cole-compatible route back to what was left of Coral, and Team Foxtrot would be transferred to the Heart of Midlothian, which would take them back to Onyx, while O'Connell and his crew would finally have the R&R they deserved on Reach. A simple enough plan, and an outcome that couldn't come soon enough. He just had to hope the SPARTANs would make it to the rendezvous on time.

* * *

Cassandra was starting to lose her patience. She could see the SPARTANs as they ascended the spire, progressing cautiously in case any more Covenant were around. Her subroutine was guiding them the safest and quickest route, but it still wasn't a quick journey. Team Foxtrot were taking their sweet time to make it to the terminal in the spire's council chamber, and in the meantime she was stuck here with Grace. Admittedly, he made for interesting company, though everything he said was a riddle to her, with so many layers interlocking and weaving a story that she simply couldn't understand. If only the archives were still intact! Over time, however, she was able to uncover a kind of story. She didn't understand the terms or their meanings, and the context was unintelligible, but she could make out some details. It appeared that the Forerunners, who had built this city and once dwelt on Meridian long ago (a world they termed the Ancillary, had faced some kind of great threat that had almost wiped out their civilisation. In a desperate final solution, they had built a set of weapons known as the Array, which would eliminate the threat. When the Array was fired, some kind of Shield would protect the Forerunners, but instead they had vanished from the galaxy, leaving something called Reclaimers in their stead. These Reclaimers had some sort of connection to humans, it seemed, or at least to Cassandra, who still didn't understand what exactly she was supposed to reclaim. Still, that was something for the ONI spooks to figure out. She wasn't prepared for what he said next.

"If you are a construct of the Reclaimers, then surely you should know the proper protocol for the firing of the Array. We must activate the Ancillary at once. The knowledge gathered here has been indexed during the purge, for distribution at such a time that the other installations are prepared to follow suit. Do you understand?"

This was a shock. The information she had been looking for in the first place wasn't missing after all, but had been stored away, hidden somewhere in the Ancillary. But there was something about the way Grace had spoken that piqued Cassandra's curiosity. It made her more than a little suspicious, too. Perhaps that was the old ONI paranoia acting up. "What exactly do you mean by 'installation'?" she asked. "Are you saying that the Ancillary isn't confined to the city itself?"

"Heavens, no," Grace replied. "Whatever made you think that? This installation stores far too much data for such a tiny area to hold."

As 692 Redeeming Grace continued to explain the purpose of the Ancillary, Cassandra couldn't begin to conceal her horror. It would be far too risky for her to even attempt to get this information back to ONI. Such a vast treasure trove had to be hidden away for good, wiped out completely, lest the Covenant discover exactly what they had right underneath their feet. The Ancillary wasn't merely the archives of the library complex where she had been trapped. It wasn't even the whole city. The Ancillary just so happened to be a single, vast library, the largest ever built.

Ancillary came from an old Forerunner word for artificial intelligence, the term 'ancilla'. It was the planet as a whole. An artificial construction built by stellar engineers. The last remaining library world of the Forerunners.

* * *

**Final part to come soon, and yes, I know the chapters have been getting longer each time. I'll probably rewrite the story eventually, make it better and pace it much better, but that will have to wait until the rest of the story is done...**


	7. Rendezvous

**FORERUNNER ANCILLARY GOVERNMENT COMPLEX – 5 HOURS TO EXFILTRATION**

"We've got a problem".

Those were the first words from Cassandra's virtual lips, appearing as a hologram, the moment she was recovered to the Minh's TACPAD.

"What? I don't understand, just what have you been doing in there?" replied Tom. Cassandra could understand his frustration – the journey through the spire had been uneventful, but the Covenant were crawling all over the city and as team leader, his only desire was to find a way out and to reach the rendezvous in time. It would be a lot more difficult in any case, given that their Pelican was no longer anything but a pile of slag and crumpled metal, lying on the edge of a forest at least twenty kilometres away. Now though, Cassandra was nervous. For the first time, she faced a dilemma. She knew she couldn't tell the team about the Forerunners. She didn't have time, and they would have too many questions that she couldn't answer, particularly about the city itself. Ultimately, she chose to give a vague answer, explaining what she needed to without elaborating. If the SPARTANs wanted to know more, then tough. She was ONI, she couldn't just be giving out classified intelligence without a care. And there was no need for them to know more anyway. Just enough to keep them alive, and that would be enough.

"I can't tell the whole story, but we need to level this city. There are too many secrets for the Covenant to find out."

Tom was incredulous. "What secrets? What are you talking about?"

"They have no idea what lies under their feet. There is data here too valuable for them to recover, even for ONI to find. We have no choice, we have to wipe this place off the map."

While talking to 692 Redeeming Grace, Cassandra had come up with an idea. She had managed to infiltrate the Covenant Battlenet and the city's systems, enough to learn more about the Covenant leadership overseeing the excavation. The main officer in charge was a particularly zealous and overbearing Sangheili shipmaster called Jdan 'Nolumee. He had an unfortunate habit of jumping the gun, including glassing key sites on conquered worlds before ever receiving an order to do so. That was also why no Huragok had been present here – they were due to arrive that same day, just hours away, on a flagship belonging to a Lesser Prophet, the Minister of Contemplation. The Minister was meant to be monitoring Jdan on the excavation of the city, but he had been delayed, and an impatient Jdan had begun digging already. Cassandra knew that she could stop the Covenant's interest in the city if she could simply give Jdan cause to glass the place. Easier said than done. And there was no guarantee that they would leave the planet alone. ONI would need to send another team after her to make sure, and that would tie up even more resources and give the Covenant more reason to examine the area. But she couldn't think of anything else.

"There is too much at stake, if the Covenant find out what this planet is hiding then the war will be over within months."

"What about ONI?"

"Even them! Tom, we have no other option. There's no time to get ONI here, every second we delay gives the Covenant more time to search the city." Cassandra could see Tom's mind working as he pondered her words. Beside him, the other SPARTANs waited to see what he would decide. Though they worked as a team, Tom was still the leader, after all.

Eventually he came to a conclusion. "What do we need to do?"

Cassandra could barely hide her relief. "Split up. We only have a few hours to the rendezvous, and it'll take at least an hour in a decent speed craft to get to low orbit. Adam and Lucy can find a transport, they'll have my subroutine guiding them through the city to a landing platform about two kilometres away. Tom, you and Minh need to take me in the TACPAD to a power plant below the city."

"What do you mean splitting up? We're in a hostile environment, I'm not breaking my team apart to chase after your whims."

"This isn't a whim," Cassandra replied. "Five hours is our deadline, even this plan is cutting it close. The city runs on a power grid that's still active, there are fusion plants below this building and several others across the map. This spire has a gravity lift right down the centre that allows access to the fusion plants. I can't access them from here since they run on a separate system, but if I can get inside the network I can trigger an overload in the reactors. If I set it on a timer we can be halfway out of atmosphere when the chain reaction begins. It should sink the whole city and any Covenant still in it."

Tom could see the sense in the plan, and it was clear to him that whatever his misgivings, Cassandra must know something vital that the Covenant couldn't find out. But he still had issues with the idea. "Why that split anyway? Adam can go with Minh, surely the big guns would help down there?"

"It's not as simple as that. There are shields on the reactors, too powerful to break through. Worse than a Covenant cruiser. It doesn't matter what Adam unloads, he won't get through. And if he does, he risks damaging the reactors. We do not want to be here when the city goes to hell."

"And Minh?"

"I need him to get me into the system itself. He's the tech guy, right? He can work through the hardware, load me up and deal with the firewalls. I can deal with pretty much everything in there, but if something goes wrong he's the best one to take over. This city has to fall."

She had clearly thought the plan through, and it seemed pretty smooth. Lucy was the best pilot out of the team, she would be the perfect choice to reach the landing platform. Adam would be a great help too. If the platform was defended properly, as it should be, they could expect Phantoms, Spirits and a few Banshees as air support. During the journey to the spire, he had managed to pick up a fuel rod gun from a fallen Grunt, though Adam had wondered at the time how such a tiny creature could possibly carry such a large weapon. At the site he would just have to improvise if the ammo ran out.

"Alright," Tom said. "Let's head out. Lucy, Adam, as soon as you secure a transport get the hell out of there. Try and make it back here and wait around for us, clear the area if the Covies decide to ambush us. And make damn sure it's a fast ship. The Peregrine can't hang around, we have to make the RV." With that, the team acknowledged their orders and began their tasks.

* * *

**LUCY AND ADAM – ANCILLARY STREETS**

"How much further?" Adam was speaking to Cassandra's subroutine, which had guided them from the spire through the empty streets and passages of the Forerunner city towards the landing platform they were to storm. Two kilometres wasn't a great distance, but the Covenant had stepped up their patrols now that they knew the rough location of the SPARTANs, and Adam expected the target to be heavily defended. As long as they could use cover and cut a path to a dropship, however, it would be fine, as with Lucy's flying skills they would be much safer in the air. But on the ground, they had been forced to use a roundabout route, and although they had narrowly avoided any fighting they still seemed to be moving further away from their destination. The subroutine had needed stealth too, still inside the city monitoring systems, only giving advice through the public speakers when it was certain nobody was in earshot, and for the rest of the journey the pair had relied on their training and instincts.

"We are almost there, less than a hundred metres east of the target,"came the reply. This was a surprise, as Adam could have sworn they had been moving the opposite direction for the past fifteen minutes. Then again, maybe they had simply travelled too far in a circle to avoid the patrols. Either way, the wait was almost over. Now they would have to fight.

As the pair turned a corner by a building shaped like some alien flower, with strange tendrils rising high above them, they could see a circular platform, roughly fifty metres in diameter, raised above the ground by about a hundred metres. Ahead of them was one of seven gravity lifts that ringed the platform, which was tethered by what appeared to be beams of light to the surrounding buildings. As they moved closer, keeping in cover behind ammo crates, they could see the buildings all looked similar to the one they had crept around. They seemed to be storage units of some sort, perhaps used when this place was a working city with regular transit and trade. Adam could see that their approach would be hidden until they actually reached the platform, but it was a double edged sword. Just as they couldn't be seen by the troops on the platform, neither could they see what they would be facing when they ascended. They would be going in blind, and the subroutine Cassandra had left could give no intelligence. She had been left to get them to the landing pad and that was it. When Adam and Lucy arrived, the subroutine was useless. It had self-destructed, purging itself from the system. A necessary act, as Adam remembered the Cole Protocol, and that no trace of a UNSC AI could be found by the Covenant. If only she had stuck around a little longer though.

"Any thoughts?" This was from Lucy, hiding right under the platform, while Adam stood a short distance away examining a gravity lift.

"I was thinking shock and awe?" replied Adam. "We'll only get one chance. Take out as many as we can and get to cover."

"And if there's no cover?"

"We run for it." Not the best tactics, he knew, but then again these were hardly the best circumstances. All either of them could hope for was that there were plenty of Grunts and Jackals, and fewer Elites and Hunters. Something easy to deal with. With this in mind, Adam stepped into the first lift they had seen, while Lucy stepped into another further along the ring. The aim was to flank the enemy and deal as much damage as they could while they had the element of surprise. They would just have to hope it worked.

* * *

**TOM AND MINH – FORERUNNER FUSION PLANTS**

If the progress faced on the surface by Lucy and Adam had been slow, it was nothing compared to the trek underground. Though they had made good time, the lift down had been the fastest part of the journey, taking Tom and Minh roughly a kilometre underneath the city to a set of tunnels. The passages had been carved out of a strange combination of stone and some metal that neither could identify, and glyphs had been inscribed all over the walls. Minh recognised some of them as being similar to those he had witnessed on Covenant vehicles, that he had previously thought of as markers to identify each like a registration plate, but now realised meant something else entirely. He couldn't begin to decipher what they truly meant, but it was of no concern to him anyway. The sooner he could get off this godforsaken rock the better.

The tunnels soon devolved into a labyrinth that were so easy to get lost in. Perhaps the glyphs were markers to help guide a path? But with no way of reading them, Tom and Minh would have been helplessly lost if not for the guidance of Cassandra, who pointed out each way through with ease. Soon enough, they found their way into a wide open space, a chasm that extended deep under the planet. It was so far down that Minh couldn't even begin to see the bottom, and so wide and tall that he felt the city above them could have fitted within easily enough. Spanning the gap was a series of catwalks and platforms that were suspended to the walls above by the same beams of light Adam had seen at the landing pad. Every few hundred metres was a larger platform supporting a massive construct that Minh couldn't begin to describe. At the heart of each construct was a glowing blue ball of what seemed to be plasma, each ball flashing white briefly at odd intervals before returning to their blue hue again. These must be the fusion reactors they had come to destroy. As he looked at the spectacle before him, he could hear Cassandra's voice in his helmet.

"We're here. Get over to the nearest reactor and plug me in. Chances are you won't need to do anything else, but keep an eye out for Covenant. If they've guessed what we plan to do..." She didn't need to say any more. As Tom took up a defensive position around the corner of the closest walkway, using the hard light as a transparent shield, Minh hurried forward to a reactor and located a port similar to those he had seen on the terminals back in the library building. Plugging the TACPAD in, he waited for confirmation from Cassandra that she had managed to access the systems and begin the reactor overload that would send the city to the deep.

Behind him, Tom cocked his rifle and took aim. The Covenant had arrived.

* * *

**LUCY AND ADAM – LANDING PLATFORM**

Rising through the gravity fields Lucy anticipated the coming fight. If there was no cover to be found then she and Adam would be like sitting ducks, but nevertheless they would go out with a bang. They had restocked their weapons and ammo before leaving the spire, Adam taking his fuel rod gun with a standard assault rifle strapped to his back, while Lucy opted for a Covenant Carbine instead of the heavy weaponry. Packing a powerful punch, it would be the best way of dealing with any Elites and their shields. To cap it all they had each taken a handful of plasma and frag grenades too. As they crested the rim of the platform, they could see just what foes they had to fight. No Hunters, fortunately, nor Grunts, but there were plenty of Jackals with energy shields, along with a squad of Elites guiding them. They seemed to be loading ammo crates and weapons onto the transports waiting on the far edge. Two Spirit dropships and a group of Banshees, currently unmanned, with two Phantoms – one on each side. The Phantoms were the targets, being much quicker than any other craft there, able to reach escape velocity, and having the capability of space flight without suffocating its passengers. The crates nearest to them were enough cover that the Covenant hadn't yet noticed them, but it was only a matter of time. Taking direct aim at an Elite with gold armour, clearly the leader of the squad, Lucy fired two rounds straight at its head. The first round ricocheted and spun away into the distance, but was enough to damage the Elite's shields. The second caused them to fail completely and went straight through armour and flesh, purple blood splashing across the metal of the nearest Banshee. At the same moment, Adam fired a fuel rod blast at the left prong of the nearest Spirit, hitting a crate that had already been loaded. The crate must have been filled with grenades or some other combustible device, as the single shot caused an explosion powerful enough to rip the prong off the rest of the dropship and blow the Banshees clear off the platform. Half of the Jackals, as well as two of the five remaining Elites, were engulfed, cutting the opposing force in one swift assault. Using the cover provided by the remaining crates, though knowing the risks of another grenade explosion, Adam and Lucy made their way forward, keeping to the flanks in an attempt to deal with the Jackals and their energy shields. Though individually they weren't much of a threat, when grouped together and with Elites supporting them Jackals could prove very dangerous. This time, however, the pincer was enough to give the SPARTANs the edge, with the Jackals only able to defend from one side it was easy for the pair to mop up any remaining resistance. Lucy showed herself to be lethally accurate with the carbine, taking out the remaining Elites with ease. The battle was quick, and by the end of it Adam and Lucy found themselves standing next to a Phantom.

"Get yourself strapped in," said Lucy. "I'll get this bird ready to fly."

"You sure you know what you're doing? Have you ever even flown one of these before?"

Lucy paused briefly. "I'll pick it up."

"You'd better. We die in this thing, I'll bloody kill you."

With this, Lucy quickly made her way to the cockpit, while Adam sat down on one of the strange alien benches that lined the interior of the troop hold. As he pondered the design and wondered if he could even hope to get comfortable sitting on it, he heard something below him. Spinning around with the fuel rod cannon held high, he took in his surroundings. A single shot could probably ignite several of the ammo crates, though surely the Covenant here had been wiped out? Glancing over the closest edge of the platform was enough to prove him wrong. The flower-like buildings that Adam had previously thought were warehouses were in fact nothing of the sort. The Covenant had been using them as barracks, and the sound of the previous fire-fight had attracted the occupants' attention.

"Shit," thought Adam. He yelled into the cockpit as the Covenant swarmed up to his level. "Lucy, get this thing in the air now! We've got Covies on our tail!"

"What? Didn't we just kill them all?"

"I wish! They're coming up the grav lifts now, I can't hold them all off!"

Reacting quickly, Adam unloaded his remaining fuel rods at the most densely packed groups of Covenant that landed on the platform, until the gun was empty. Knowing about the fail-safe that would cause the gun to explode, he threw it with all his might at the nearest pair of Elites as the stepped out of the lift, timing it just right and blowing up another ammo crate as a consolation. Before any of the Covenant could take aim at him, he threw himself behind the rear turret on board the Phantom and began to fire.

In the cockpit, Lucy had been struggling at first, but as she studied the ship's controls she noticed a curious familiarity. She had never flown a Phantom before, though she had certainly piloted her fair share of Ghosts and Banshees on earlier ground ops. Phantom flying wasn't something they taught back at Camp Curahee. Nevertheless, she had a feeling she would be able to pick this up. The added urgency from Adam's call over the team channel simply gave her more resolve.

"Come on, you son of a bitch, help me out here," she whispered, under her breath. Times like this, she thought, Cassandra would be invaluable. But Cassandra was currently a thousand metres below Lucy, guiding the others through an impossible maze to an uncertain end. In front of her now were bizarre glyphs and signs that glowed as she touched them, though otherwise stayed the same. She could see numbers though, a strange set of symbols but easily recognisable as a numeric system, that changed depending on what she touched. Perhaps these comprised the instrument panel? Moving on, Lucy scanned the rest of the panel that rose ahead of her, almost afraid to touch anything else for fear of what it would do. Unlike a Spirit, there were no bay doors to open or close, but there were all sorts of controls needed to control pitch, yaw and roll, and maintain a fixed altitude. Another set of controls would presumably allow weapons access, allowing her to fire the plasma cannons mounted on the dropship's underbelly, while others (she imagined) would fire up the shields that would not only allow them to exit the planet's atmosphere without exposure to empty space, but also protect both Lucy and Adam from the horde of Covenant outside. But without knowing what to touch, she had no idea if she would save them both, or fire the cannons and damage the ship. A plasma explosion of such strength so close to the platform would probably be enough to ground the craft, assuming Adam and Lucy weren't killed by proximity to the blast themselves.

There was nothing for it. She would have to take a chance. She reached out and tapped on thin air, just in front of a glyph that looked promising, a green circle with a pair of horizontal bars running through it. As she pressed it, a humming sound rose up around her. Lucy recognised it well, it was the sound she had heard Phantoms make when they had flown overhead on her other missions. The symbol itself disappeared, only to be replaced by a set of new symbols that looked closer to the buttons she had learned to use in a Pelican. Universal signs used for steering and generally piloting ships like these.

"Adam? You still with me?"

"I read you loud and clear, what's up? You getting anywhere? I can't keep these guys off our backs forever!"

"I think I've got something. I finally found the 'on' switch."

"Great, now get us in the air!"

"I'm trying but it looks like the controls are locked. I need to bypass the systems. Can you hold out for a moment longer?"

Lucy could hear Adam sigh in her helmet speakers. "Not for much longer, no. They're like a flood."

"Just bear with me. Anything you can do to keep them away. Lucy out."

In the rear of the Phantom, Adam closed the connection and continued to focus on the swarm in front of him. Most of the Covenant had resigned themselves to hiding in cover, taking potshots, but although there was a shield on the turret providing him with limited protection, its power was rapidly failing. One well-aimed super-charged plasma shot had actually brought them down for a few seconds, forcing Adam to duck down and switch to his assault rifle until the turret shield was restored. He needed a new approach, and fast. Thinking quickly, he spotted the hard light beams that anchored the platform to the surrounding buildings. Each beam was generated by a device high on the walls of the warehouses, the flower-halls, surrounding the platform. Each device looked almost like a cone with a flat top, made of some metal and inscribed with the same glyphs Adam had seen elsewhere in the city. He wondered if they were vulnerable to plasma fire.

It would be risky, he knew, and he would need to time it just right to avoid the potshots from the hiding Covenant, as well as the heavy fire raining down by suicidal Grunts and their Needlers (most of which had deflected off the turret shield). Adam planned to shoot the hard light generators and hopefully destabilise the platform. If he could shake off a few of the Covenant then it would buy Lucy a little more time to bypass the Phantom security. Provided the entire platform didn't come crashing down, of course.

He had to try it, though. Waiting for a lull in the hail of plasma, Adam aimed his turret at the furthest generator, angled above and directly ahead of him. Firing continuously, it took a few seconds, but soon there was a small ball of bright white fire and the beam coming from the generator suddenly disappeared. At the same moment, the platform lurched forward and shook, unable to withstand its previous stability with one of its supports gone. Several unfortunate Jackals and an Elite, standing too close to the edge, fell a hundred metres to their deaths. Over the team channel, Adam could hear Lucy cry out.

"What the hell was that? Were we hit?"

"I took out one of the support beams," Adam replied. "Shook them up a bit."

"Are you insane? I haven't got this thing working yet, if the platform falls we'll be going with it!"

"If it doesn't fall and you don't hurry we'll both be dead anyway. How close are you to finishing? I can probably take out another beam safely, any more and the platform won't hold."

"You'd better be damn sure, Adam. I'm nearly done, but the Covie bastards had it pretty well sealed. I thought they weren't meant to be this clever with computers?"

"Leave it for the spooks, Luce. ONI can handle that, let's just get the hell out of here. Alive."

Closing the channel, Adam took aim while he had the chance and began to fire on the next generator going clockwise. Again, a few more seconds of heavy fire and the beam disappeared, causing the platform to lurch again and sending even more Covenant, those who couldn't find a hand-hold, to plummet to the ground below. This time, however, he had made a severe miscalculation. Firing on any other generator would have provided a bit more stability, but with two adjacent support beams gone, the remaining beams couldn't hold the weight as evenly. Adam had been wrong. Instead of remaining relatively stable, the platform was beginning to break apart under the strain. If Lucy couldn't get the Phantom airborne soon, they would both fall just as the multitude of Covenant already had, and there would be no getting off Meridian at all.

Fortunately, it seemed that miracles could occur. As the platform broke apart, Adam heard a voice in his ear - "Done it!" and felt the Phantom lift off, rising slowly at first but picking up speed. Looking down, he could see the remaining hard light beams give way, the generators straining to take the load before bursting in shards of metal, and finally giving up as the platform fell to the plaza below. One by one, the gravity lifts failed and shut down, as the remaining Covenant waiting to ascend and attack ran for their lives for fear of being crushed under a twisted heap of alien metal. A few Hunters emerging from the barracks fired beams of plasma towards the sky, hoping to hit Adam or the Phantom, but missed as they too were killed by the landing pad's bulk. A final two-fingered salute to the dead, and Adam breathed a sigh of relief as the Phantom sped away towards the spire.

* * *

**TOM AND MINH – FORERUNNER FUSION PLANTS**

Minh heard the sound of Tom's rifle before he heard the hum of the plasma behind him. Turning rapidly around, he just made it into cover behind a pillar of hard light before a bolt of green flashed past his right ear, barely missing him. The sensors in his helmet warned him of the severe drop in his shields and the higher radiation levels, automatically injecting anti-radiation drugs into his system to protect him against the worst effects. Next to him, Tom took aim and fired a burst from his assault rifle at the closest Covenant, the Jackal that had just fired.

"Where did they come from?" called Minh, hoping either Tom or Cassandra would have an answer. "Were they behind us in the tunnels the whole time?"

"I think they were down there already," replied Cassandra from the reactor terminal. "We were lucky to avoid them, or maybe they wanted to ambush us down here. There's no surveillance in the tunnels."

Continuing her work, Cassandra fell silent. The Covenant, meanwhile, continued to spill from the cavern entrance, mostly Jackals and Grunts but with a few Elites guiding them from the rear. This struck Minh as odd. Normally Elites were at the front of the pack, leading by example and pushing the lower races to hold the line. Why were they suddenly so keen to stay back? He would never know the truth, that the shipmaster of this fleet had ordered them to stay back himself. Another sign of cowardice Jdan would need to pay for.

As the onslaught continued and plasma flew past them, Tom and Minh kept up a hail of bullets from their assault rifles. The distinct lack of fighting earlier had been great for conserving ammo, but they were both running low now, and soon they were forced to switch to the Needlers they had purloined from dead Grunts before reaching the spire. Once those were empty they would rely on their side-arms, Magnum pistols with 2x scopes, and the healthy supply of plasma grenades they had picked up. Radiation warnings were sounding in their ears, but still the Covenant came, bodies slowly piling on the catwalk and near the tunnel mouth. After a short while, the mass of bodies began to falter, then finally no more came through. It wasn't quite the end, however. Listening carefully for signs of movement, Minh heard a series of heavy thudding footsteps that he could have sworn he recognised. Before he could place the sound, though, the source came into view.

A pair of Mgalekgolo, or Hunters, made their way onto the main catwalk, each carrying a heavy assault cannon fused to their arms. Forced to think quickly, Minh dived to the left while Tom leaped right, narrowly avoiding the stream of fire from the bond brothers in the centre. As quickly as the shots had come, they ended, while the cannons were forced to recharge after overheating. This gave the SPARTANs a brief moment to rally and call to Cassandra for aid.

"Sorry, I can't help you," was her reply. "I'm a little busy right now!" Despairing and without tactics to deal with Hunters on such a limited style of terrain, Tom and Minh felt helpless. They had never had such thoughts as SPARTANs, not since they escaped the burning of their home worlds before being approached by the navy men to fight the Covenant and have their revenge. But just as a miracle had come for Adam and Lucy, so too would a miracle occur to help Tom and Minh from their situation.

"Hold on guys," Cassandra called from the terminal. "I've just had word from Lucy. They managed to steal a Phantom but they're being tailed by Covenant air support. She managed to work out the comms, it seems."

"That's great," replied Tom, "but how does it help us?"

"I took a look at some footage she patched through of their escape. Adam managed to break the hard light beams supporting the landing platform, killed most of the Covenant on their backs. Try it with the catwalks!"

"I hate to burst your bubble, Cassandra, but we're on the catwalks too, as are the reactors."

"I can send details to your helmet displays. Point out which ones to break, just aim for the generators on the cavern walls."

With this, Minh and Tom saw a set of points highlighted on their heads-up displays, corresponding to points on the wall nearest to them. "Hit those and you should be safe. You'll need to lure the Hunters to the place I marked in red, though." True to her word, the displays also showed one catwalk in particular that was marked in red. It seemed that destroying the generators above would cause this specific path to collapse and fall into the abyss. It was risky, but then, so were the Hunters.

"Minh," cried Tom, "keep firing on the one in front. I'll flank them and play rabbit."

"You sure? Are you fast enough?"

"I'm always fast enough. Just keep up the covering fire until I start to run. I'll get one to charge me, you just be ready to knock out the catwalk as soon as I'm clear."

Running to one side and down another walkway, Tom moved closer to the Hunters, while Minh provided cover. As Tom got closer, Minh switched his aim to the generators marked on his helmet display. A quick burst of needles was enough to get the Hunter pair's attention, with the rear one firing another beam of plasma at Tom while the closer one charged him. Running to avoid the continuous blast, he made it to the catwalk targeted just as Minh began to fire.

"Hurry!" called Minh as he fired round after round with the scoped Magnum at each generator in turn. The catwalk buckled with the loss of support and the combined weight of an adolescent SPARTAN in SPI armour and a fully-armed Hunter. Reaching the end of the catwalk, Tom leaped forward, just about landing safely on another platform as the last generator failed. The walkway finally gave way, and plummeted into the depths of the chasm below, taking the Hunter down with it.

The remaining foe let out a scream of pure rage at the loss of its bond brother, and all self control was lost. Half a colony of Lekgolo had vanished, and the devastation was too much for the remaining creatures to bear. With a snarl, the Hunter charged forward and around the remaining walkways to the SPARTANs, all memory of its assault cannon lost. Minh aimed carefully at the gaps in its armour, while Tom had a perfect position from which to fire at its flanks. The combined force of a hail of Magnum bullets and needle rounds was more than enough to rip the colony apart and stop the Hunter dead in its tracks. With one final roar, it fell to one side over the edge, to join its brother in the darkness.

"Nice one," said Cassandra through the terminal. "Couldn't have done it better myself. If I could carry a gun, I mean."

"Never mind that," said Tom. "How much more is there to do?"

"Oh, the reactor? It's finished."

"What?" Tom was amazed. Surely she could have mentioned it sooner?

"Sorry, you were too busy fighting those things, didn't seem like the right time. Anyway, I set the timer for half an hour before the rendezvous with the Peregrine. That is, two hours from now, by the way. So I suggest we get the hell out of here and link up with the others?"

It didn't seem like it had been so long to Minh, but the tunnels were fairly distant and it made sense that crossing half a city would take such a length of time. Still, he would be glad to get back to the surface. He felt like he'd spent more than enough time underground for one day.

* * *

**GOVERNMENT COMPLEX – ONE HOUR TO EXFILTRATION**

It would be tight. The journey back from the fusion reactors had been a bit quicker, since Tom and Minh had a better idea of the rough layout of the labyrinth, but though they had been running more they still found themselves facing patrols of Covenant determined to deal with the human threat once and for all. Adam and Lucy had been pretty badly tailed for their part, making several circuits of the city in an attempt to deal with the remaining air support while waiting to pick up the others. Though mostly successful, they hadn't been able to deal with every landing pad, nor shaken off their chief pursuers, forcing a deadly scramble for Tom and Minh to jump on board as quickly as possible so Lucy could get the Phantom back in the air and up high again. Too long on the ground and they would be sitting ducks. So it was that they found themselves pursued over the city as they desperately pushed their way out of atmosphere and into a low orbit for the rendezvous with Captain O'Connell. Upon arriving at the Phantom, Minh had wasted no time in plugging the TACPAD into the ship's control panels and giving Cassandra access to the flight systems. She had been pretty useful, but let Lucy handle the actual driving – surprisingly, Lucy was a much better pilot than Cassandra could ever hope to be. She had an almost innate talent for it, and she knew just where to fly to avoid the bursts of plasma coming from the pursuing Banshees and Phantoms below them. Cassandra had certainly helped, though, by unlocking and handily translating the symbols on the hard light panels. With this new knowledge, Lucy had been able to finally access the plasma cannons underneath the dropship, and she had set up the shields to protect the team from the lack of atmosphere once they exited the planet and made it into what was technically considered 'space'. Cassandra, meanwhile, would handle the life support systems and diagnostics to keep the ship running smoothly until they could be picked up.

The air support from the Covenant had died off not long after exiting the city. Those that had survived were too few to do any real damage and soon slunk back to the ruins, while the remainder had been wiped out by the cannons Lucy now had firing capabilities for. A few Banshees had managed to rise higher than the Phantom, their pilots pushing them beyond their limits even as Lucy strained to get as much power and performance as she could, but the rest of Team Foxtrot had easily handled them. While Adam maintained control of the rear turret, the side turrets were taken by Tom and Minh. As they continued their progress, Cassandra spoke to the team over the Phantom's communication channel.

"You might want to take a look behind us."

As a single unit, the three SPARTANs in the passenger section looked out and below, towards the city, while a view screen came into sight in the cockpit allowing Lucy to see too. The landscape below them seemed frozen in time, a moment that would last forever. Until they heard a loud booming sound in the distance, the sound of a chain reaction of fusion reactors exploding one after another, collapsing the walls and ceiling of the great cavern below the city. It started slowly, beginning in the centre, as a plaza almost a mile across decorated with paving in the ancient language of the Forerunners collapsed on itself like a sink hole. Around it, the nearest buildings fell, with an effect almost like a wave travelling outwards towards the edges of the city. One by one, entire swathes of land and structure were swallowed up by the planet, until nothing was left save a massive crater where a proud and noble settlement had once stood. The team stood on the Phantom deck watching the destruction unfold, until finally they turned and continued their ascent to the waiting UNSC Prowler above.

* * *

**ONYX SLIPSPACE BUBBLE – NOVEMBER 17th 2552**

Tom's story was finally over. He had amassed something of a crowd during the telling, with the other SPARTANs and Chief Mendez joining them as he recounted to Lucy and Doctor Halsey the events on Meridian just a few years before. Now, with the end of the tale, the others returned to their respective tasks and time-wasters, leaving the three together again, alone around the camp fire.

"I have to thank you, Tom," said Halsey. "I often wondered about the pieces of that puzzle. Never understood. But you've given me some important clues. It's just a shame Meridian was glassed... maybe I'll never find what Cassandra found there now..." She got up and walked away, calling to Mendez (presumably complaining again – they hadn't seen eye to eye ever since arriving in the slipspace bubble).

Tom was puzzled, but chose not to discuss the point any further. Better to leave Halsey to her mysteries and secrets, he thought. He was a soldier, not a spy, and he was tired. Glancing at Lucy, flashing her a brief smile, he got up and slowly walked back into the cave, ready to get some sleep. She watched as he left, returning the smile, but it was one full of a sense of melancholy. Lucy tried to open her mouth, but she was dehydrated. She needed water, and would grab a drink soon, but first there was something she needed to do. She moved her tongue around her mouth, not used to the feeling of trying to say anything, and breathed deeply. In, out, in out. Finally, a single word, drawn out and barely a whisper under her breath. The greatest achievement, she felt, of all her nineteen years of life.

"Tom."

* * *

**So, we finally come to the end! I have just one more thing, after seven chapters (yes, seven the arc number ;D), I plan a brief epilogue tying up that last little loose end of Jdan'Nolumee, and with that shall be the end of Memories! I hope you've all enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and look forward to the supplemental material still to come to finally finish Cassandra's tale... ;)**


	8. Epilogue

**United Nations Space Command Priority Transmission 44582S-77**

**Encryption Code – Black**

**Public Key: file /beta-eagle-four**

**From: Captain James Becker, ONI Section-III (NavSpecWar), Commanding Officer UNSC Edgehill/ (UNSC Service Number 00462-47922-JB)**

**To: Admiral Margaret Orlenda Parangosky, UNSCMID: 03669271**

**Subject: Operation SOOTHSAYER**

**Date (Military Time): 16/11/2544**

**Classification: MOST SECRET (BGX/Cole/General Directive)**

**/start file/**

**This file is to be treated as classified information, EYES ONLY, and refers to the aftermath of Operation SOOTHSAYER and the subsequent investigation of the colony world Meridian. Following the return of the UNSC Peregrine to UNSC-controlled space, arriving at Reach via Coral (a Cole-compatible jump), the AI Cassandra was detained by ONI personnel (Section-III, Beta-5 Division) for immediate transfer to the UNSC Point of No Return. The testimony given indicated a large supply of Forerunner technology on Meridian, and a vast data trove hereby referred to as the Ancillary. Further information was not given, though the mission log given by the personnel involved in escorting Cassandra to the surface of Meridian also indicates a large system of tunnels and underground installations below what we have already confirmed as a Forerunner city. Their records also indicated that the city was destroyed during the escape from Meridian, though this report does not recommend any further disciplinary action to be taken against the members of Team Foxtrot.**

**Following Cassandra's testimony, the AI was returned to the personal custody of Doctor Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, for further development and research. All data pertaining to the Forerunners was wiped from Cassandra's memory prior to her return, owing to the need for secrecy and the well-documented 'friction' between yourself, Admiral, and Doctor Halsey. A group of ships consisting of my own frigate UNSC Edgehill, the destroyers UNSC Stamford Bridge and UNSC Alamo, and the carrier UNSC Victoria, returned to Meridian to investigate. We were unprepared for what had happened during the UNSC's absence from the system. It appears that Meridian had been glassed by the Covenant, the details and circumstances of which remain unknown. No trace could be found of the location of the Forerunner city, save a massive crater where it once stood, which appeared to be the centre of a glyph of some sort burned into the ground. Maybe your researchers can make head or tail of it, there's a picture attached to the report. Looks kind of like concentric circles but the inner ones are open, and five lines coming out of the centre. The top left line's pretty short compared to the others. No Covenant vessels remained in the area, and scans showed no ground troops remaining; scans also showed no remaining traces of Forerunner technology that could be easily reclaimed and returned to ONI custody. Sorry, Admiral, but it looks like those Infinity computer upgrades will have to wait.**

**This report also advises that the AI Cassandra be kept under extremely close watch. Despite her youth, she appears to be showing early signs of rampancy, and several important details of this operation were hidden from us, discovered only through the records provided by Team Foxtrot and the commanding officer of the UNSC Peregrine. Don't let Halsey know her pet is being observed, either. Maybe get Araquiel on the job. I'm sure Ackerson won't mind letting his brand new AI have a stab at a little recon work...**

**/end file/**

* * *

_The following transcript is part of ONI Section III records related to the ongoing investigation under Operation WHITE FLAG, and is to be treated as classified, EYES ONLY. Access may only be granted to WHITE FLAG related Beta-5 personnel, with the express permission of Fleet Admiral Lord T. Hood._

Partial sub-chatter transcr[obscured]  
submission of official relea[obscured]

2553:01:07:16:38:29:04 – 2553:01:07:16[obscured]

**marple60286:** So, what can you tell me about these audio logs then?

**hotel45882:** Not much to say, really. Got found in a Covie flagship near New Bohemia, couple of years ago.

**marple60286:** New Bohemia? Wasn't that the hit on that Prophet? Some minister or something?

**hotel45882:** Yeah, they had a bunch of _twos_ kill off some Prophet, like you say. New Bohemia was part of a supply route somewhere but we never found where the stuff was going. Didn't matter really, it got cut anyway. Covie bastards didn't like that much, can't say I blame them either...

**marple60286:** Yeah, but what about these audio logs? You say they were on the flagship?

**hotel45882:** That's right. I won't bore you with the details, but the kill squad had to get on board this flagship to hit the target. Ended up grabbing a load of data off their systems for ONI while they were at it. Most of it was just junk, bits of important stuff here and there, helped us out a bit, but the audio logs were part of the junk.

**marple60286:** Or so everyone thought...

**hotel45882: **Pretty much, yeah. No-one even thought about them until last year. Some guy Phillips took a gander, wanted to see what was what.

**marple60286:** Phillips? Why does that sound familiar?

**hotel45882:** Evan Phillips? Sure you haven't heard of him before? Some hotshot prof from Wheatley, knows a fair bit about the Sangheili. Doing some work for you guys up at III, right?

**marple60286:** Now now, you know that's classified ;-)

**hotel45882: **Ha, like I can't guess. Anyway, this was all when he was still at Wheatley. Apparently, to be made a professor, he had to submit some research paper, so he decided the topic would be some bullcrap about the 'Sangheili honour system'. ONI let him have a look at the files from this flagship, since it was all pretty much rubbish anyway, nothing classified at the time. Wrote up his paper, sent it to the uni, next thing you know Section III's knocking on his door and bringing him in for questioning.

**marple60286:** Okay, but why? What was in the files?

**hotel45882:** Meridian.

**marple60286:** Huh. Keeps cropping up everywhere, doesn't it?

**hotel45882: **Seems that way. Guy's a genius too, he's what, late twenties? Early thirties? And he's probably the smartest guy on Sangheili out of all humanity...

**marple60286:** Getting back on topic...

**hotel45882:** Ahem. Okay, so yeah, he wrote this paper and he just happened to mention Meridian. Someone at the uni saw it and called up their friend who worked for ONI. They brought Phillips in, started asking him what he knew. Poor sod couldn't tell them a thing, of course. In the end they just gave up. Made him take out any mention of Meridian from his papers and left him alone.

**marple60286:** Didn't stop them going straight to him for K-5 though...

**hotel45882:** Well, I don't know anything about that. The files he'd used got looked at again though, then they got added to WHITE FLAG. No-one's seen them since.

**marple60286:** Except Beta-5.

**hotel45882:** Well, yeah. All I know is they talk about why the place got glassed. Some Elite gets bumped off. That's all I can say.

**marple60286:** Yeah, well thanks for that. I'll take a look now anyway. We find Cassandra, we sort this whole mess out, right?

**hotel45882: **Hey, I couldn't care less. I'll get you the data, anything else and I just don't want to know...

_Remaining transcript omitted from records. It is known that Admiral Parangosky ordered a complete review of Operation WHITE FLAG following the successful early testing of UNSC Infinity. All further questions should be directed to Fleet Admiral Lord Terrence Hood, or to Serin Osman, interim head of the Office of Naval Intelligence._

* * *

_The following transcript comprises the audio logs previously referred to. Though brief, they appear to reveal the fate of Meridian after the escape of the UNSC Peregrine, following Operation SOOTHSAYER. As before, these records are to be considered classified, EYES ONLY, and access once again limited to Beta-5 personnel. The transcript depicts a conversation between a Sangheili shipmaster named Jdan 'Nolumee, and a San 'Shyuum believed by ONI to be known as the Minister of Contemplation. The location is believed to be the Minister's flagship, in orbit around Meridian._

**Contemplation:** This tribunal has been called to determine the fate of Jdan 'Nolumee, Shipmaster of the cruiser _Providence of Fury's Wake_. He stands accused of the most heinous of crimes, heresy, and the greatest sin, the loss of holy artefacts of the Gods themselves! Shipmaster, how do you plead?

**'Nolumee:** (quietly) I refuse.

**Contemplation:** Excuse me?

**'Nolumee:** I said I refuse. I will not plead.

**Contemplation:** You have been accused of crimes against this most holy Covenant and yet you refuse to plead?

**'Nolumee:** This is no trial, nor tribunal. I will not accept the authority of such a farce!

**Contemplation:** It is with my authority as Prophet that you will bow to this procession. Or should I simply give you the easy option...

**'Nolumee:** The Jiralhanae are without honour and nobility, their way is never easy.

**Contemplation:** No matter. I have something else in mind for you.

**'Nolumee:** There is little point. My actions were reckless. I have honour enough to admit that.

**Contemplation: **More than reckless. Your incompetence led directly to the destruction of an entire city! The relics we could have found, the knowledge lost...

**'Nolumee:** My actions were in keeping with the spirit of the Covenant!

**Contemplation:** No! Your actions were those of a fool! And there is no place for fools within our hierarchy.

**'Nolumee: **There is no helping it. My every action is derided, my every thought or word dismissed out of hand. I put it to you, there is no more honour in the San 'Shyuum than in those wretched humans!

**Contemplation: **More heresy!

**'Nolumee: **I speak merely fact. You know this to be true. There is little to separate the lords from the peasants, and you simply serve as proof. Your race is vermin with the delusions of a king. And so, you must be silenced.

_The audio logs appear to depict a struggle at this point, while video footage is unavailable it is believed from the audio and from the preceding and following dialogue that 'Nolumee attacked the Prophet with his energy sword. It is clear from the following dialogue that this attempt on the Minister's life was unsuccessful, and 'Nolumee was restrained by unknown forces._

**Contemplation:** Your true colours are revealed. There is no place for you on the Great Journey, nor will there ever be.

**'Nolumee: **A journey cannot be great when it is led by the blind.

**Contemplation: **Silence! Your guilt cannot be more clear. I hereby sentence you, and my word shall be heeded by all! As a mark of shame, you shall inscribe upon the very surface of this world the Mark of The Heretic, centred upon the crater that remains as a monument to all your sins. As the fleet bombards the rest of the planet, I shall personally take your weapon and end you, as you would have done to me.

**'Nolumee:** I shall be a martyr, then.

**Contemplation: **How dare you? There can be no martyrdom for those who stray from the one true path. Your body shall be dragged around the streets and fortresses of the Nolum Keep on Sanghelios, and to the great chambers of High Charity, for all to witness your disgrace and humility! Perhaps you think you shall find peace. But there can be no peace for a heretic.

_The audio logs abruptly cut off here, before resuming some undetermined time later. All that can be heard is ceremonial chanting, the sound of plasma fire, and 'Nolumee howling. This continues for approximately five minutes before cutting off again._

* * *

**_I'm a thief. But I keep what I steal..._**


End file.
